Chapel vs. Church

In many of my previous posts I have referenced the chapel. To clarify, chapel is the Army version of church. Most Christian colleges/camps use the term for their daily services, in the Army we extend the term to encompass Sunday morning worship as well.

The differences between church and chapel with respect to Sunday services is subtle. The main difference comes in personnel turn over. Army chaplains are on the same PCS (Permanent Change of Station) schedule as everyone else, which lends itself to various other changes. At my home church, the pastor has been there for 50+ years (my grandfather and he actually built the church). In chapel, you never know who is going to be speaking and what form the service will take.

If you are lucky enough to stay at one installation long enough you can see 2 or 3 different sets of worship teams rotate through as well, going from: Hymnal Hero, to Tomlin Curious and beyond, though rarely will you ever see the Carlos. (I am borrowing these categories from Stuff Christians Like, a great blog that really deserves it's own shout out post. I'll get around to giving it its own permalink here sometime soon.)

Things in chapel are much more flexicution based (see Semper Gumbi) than in most churches. There is really no staff, as most chaplains are assigned to battalions and "cover down" on Sundays at the chapel. This usually means that they did not plan the service they are running, which can lead to skipping offering, forgetting to tell people they can sit back down after song time and having the entire congregation stand through a 40min sermon (at some point we figure it out and just plop down, or conversely see who can stick it out the longest), etc.

Well, I think the point, if there is one, is that Chapel= Church - Pastor + Army x revolving door.

Yes, another opportunity to work the wonder that is Walker Texas Ranger into a post:
Chuck Norris once slammed a revolving door.